Do You Know What It's Like?
by icefire-lioness
Summary: Little moments of pure angst! Yay! Ok, this is; Draco for Harry, Harry for Ginny, Hermione for Ron and Ginny for Harry. Angsty-licious! AND it's a song-fic! Who can resist? Rated T for adult themes only. No coarse language, no violence.


AN: Hey guys! Third song-fic! Yeah! Ok, the song is 'Do You Know What It's Like' from 'Zanna, don't!' which is a FABULOUS musical, which I have, unfortunately, never seen. BUT, I have the soundtrack, so I know all the songs pretty much by heart now (gotta love that!) Now, for anybody who knows the musical, obviously this is quite a different interpretation of each verse, but I just got to thinking how each one kind of represents a HP character's relationship (the ones I like, anyway!), so it would be way cool if I did a fic with it! So, after many, many weeks, I have finally gotten around to actually WRITING it, and I really, really, really hope you like it. It's quite sad, and a bit angsty, but you all love that, really. I know you do. Hum. What else? Ah, yes. Go google 'zanna, don't!' (after reading and reviewing this, obviously :P) and then try and TELL me you don't LOVE the idea behind it! Go on, try it! It's fantastic. You won't be able to. You won't. I promise you. You won't. Ok. I'm stopping now. Read on!

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_**Do you know what it's like to be in love with you, to have my heart still love you when my mind knows it's not true?**_

_**Do you know what it's like to be in love with you, not to remember what my life was like before I first met you? Do you know what it's like when I lie in bed?**_

_**And I think of you and the things you've said, how they're almost exactly all the things that I've said, too? But there's one word missing and it comes before 'love' and I think it doesn't matter, what we have is enough, but what we have isn't in so I don't know what to do. Oh, do you know?**_

Draco paced the floor angrily, his hands linked behind his back. The house was empty, and the sound of his footsteps echoed through it.

He stopped suddenly, sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He listened to the tick of the clock as it counted out the seconds. Lonely seconds. All that time that he would never have with the people he loved. The person he loved.

Surely it wasn't fair. Surely, _surely_ he was owed something for the life he had already lived. What a life! Father abusive, imprisoned, and then dead. At son's own hands. Mother withdrawn, and now…dead, also. Wife and son? Gone. Both gone. Everyone gone. So he was alone, with his seconds.

Surely he was owed something. Just one thing. That was all he wanted. One wish. Of course, that wish…what would it be? To have or to forget? That was the problem.

"_Will we ever love each other again?_" _One boy asks, and he is broken_.

"_Love each other?_" _the other says, and he is laughing_. "_Love each other? Draco, I never loved you_. _You knew that_. _This was just…well, whatever it was_. _And now it's over_. _So we can forget about it_._ Just forget about it_."

Forget about it? Easy enough for him to say. Six years and he was still in love. Marriage, a child, he was still in love. Wrong person. Why was everything that he did wrong?

Draco stood up again, and walked to the coffee table. He leant down and picked up the photograph in its small wooden frame, and stared at it. His heart skipped a beat, and without thinking, he threw the picture across the room, where the glass shattered, skittering across the floor in a sparkling imitation of the grandfather clock's second hand.

He sat down on the couch again, his heart slowing as he gazed at the glittering shards of glass. So the barrier was broken on his heart, now. He would let the love out. Not that there was anywhere for it to go.

A draught blowing from under the door extricated the photograph from the remains of the wooden frame, and it was driven across the dark timber floorboards until it rested, teasingly, against Draco's foot. He picked it up carefully, and looked down at his black and white face, laughing happily, one arm slung around Harry's shoulder, who was leaning up and kissing his cheek.

Draco dropped the photograph onto the floor, and it pirouetted in the air, before landing in the fireplace and bursting into flames. He watched himself shriek with silent laughter as Harry pulled him into a kiss, and then the paper was curling into orange tongues of flame, and the photograph turned slowly to ashes.

What can you do with wishes, when all they do is break into shards of time and glass?

_**Do you know what it's like not to be in love with you, not to have my heart obey what my mind wants to be true? Do you know what it's like not to be in love with you, but to like you, love you, cherish you, idolise you and protect you? Do you know what it's like to look into your eyes and see what I know you don't see in mine though I pray it might be so the whole night through? Do you know what it's like to have to let go of your hand and to start another life, a life I don't understand, and live the rest of my life knowing how much I've hurt you? Oh, do you know?**_

Harry stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of Ginny breathing beside him. He turned his head to watch her, red hair strewn over the pillow, eyes closed tightly as though in the midst of a nightmare.

He ran his hand softly through her hair, and her face softened back into dreamless sleep. He watched her for a moment more, and then, as quietly as he could, he moved across the bed and onto the floor.

His bare feet padded softly across the floorboards, and at the door, he turned to look back at her. She was curled up at the top of the mattress, her pale face half hidden by soft waves of auburn hair.

He swallowed, running a hand over his tired eyes, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. It snicked softly and he sighed, gazing at the dark wood which separated him from her.

Then he turned, padding down the hallway to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him, shivering a little as he stepped onto the cold white tiles. Harry held the sides of the basin tightly, his eyes closed, breathing deeply, and then he looked up at his reflection in the mirror.

His face was pale and drawn, and his green eyes had dulled. There was no life in him anymore, and it was written on his face. He breathed softly on the mirror, watching as his reflection softened and warped.

He thought back to the other mirror, wondering what it would show him now. He had a family, but there was something missing. _He_ was missing.

It hurt him, knowing that no matter how hard he tried, he would never love Ginny as she deserved to be loved. She was his best friend, his sister, his everything.

He would protect her with his life, but he was not _in love_ with her. And nothing he did could change that. He saw her face, when he sighed her name, and she looked at him with so much love, and he had to turn his face away so that she couldn't see what his eyes showed.

She deserved so much more. He looked at his reflection again, and watched his eyes turn slowly from green to grey to green again.

And he knew what he had to do, but it would hurt her so much. But he had to, so he stepped out of the bathroom, pushing his black hair out of his eyes, and walked back to their bedroom, readying himself to tell her.

_**I know I'll never find your lovin' in anyone else, though I'll try, oh, and I'll try… and I know I'll never find your smile in anyone else, though I'll try, oh, and I'll try…**_

Hermione stood at the door to the church, and smoothed her skirt down with damp hands. The cotton of her skirt immediately darkened with the moisture, and she pushed her hair out of her face, drawing in a ragged breath.

Her eyes were red, but she hadn't been crying. She couldn't cry. Nothing had sunk in, yet. As soon as she stepped through that door, she knew, that was when it would hit her. That was when she would let go of the false hope that he might, _might_ not be dead.

Dead. It was such a final word, full of uncertainty and despair. No matter how many times she told herself that he was in a better place, all she could think was _is he? How can I _know_? Maybe he isn't. Maybe he's nowhere. Maybe, maybe…_

It didn't matter what she told herself, or what she thought, anyway. He wasn't here, and she was, and that was all that was true, and that was all she knew. She had sent her children – innocence lost too soon – ahead of her, into the church, and Rose had been crying and Hugo had been silent and grim, trying to comfort her, and it was all Hermione could do not to scream at the sight of them.

It was so unfair, that he would leave them all as he had. So unfair, that he would never, ever come back. So unfair, that everything was final, nothing was the same anymore, that he wasn't here. So unfair, that he had left her to cope on her own.

She stared at the oak door of the church, willing herself to enter, and the strains of music came unbidden to her head.

"_Do you think you'll remember this night?_" _he asks, and he smiles at her_._ She puts her hand into his, her arm laid across the white expanse of tablecloth between them, and her face is content_.

"_Of course I'll remember it, Ron_._ I remember every moment that I am with you_."

_The smile on his face widens, and he leans across the table to kiss her_.

_Then there is a swelling of violins, and the small band at the front of the restaurant is playing the song that they first made love to_.

"_I paid the band to play that song for us_," _he says, and he looks so proud of himself that it is all she can do to stop the laughter from rising up in her throat_.

_Then he is on his knees next to her, and she can barely breathe, let alone laugh_.

"_Hermione, I know that sometimes things have been difficult for us_. _I know that times have been hard_. _But I also know that every moment I have been with you has made everything seem alright, and that I love you with every stupid fibre of my being_. _I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and that I want you to accept me_. _Will you?_"

_And she is flying into his arms, and kissing him over and over, and whispering _"_yes, yes, yes!_"

And he _had_ spent the rest of his life with her. Unfortunately, he had never told her how short it would be.

_**If someone were to come up to me and say that they knew how to love you better, I'd say, 'Buddy, step into the ring, you're going down.'**_

_**I'd fight a guy for you. I'd fight a girl for you. I'd fight myself, you know I would,**_

_**If I thought it'd do any good. Oh, do you know?**_

Ginny sat on the edge of James' bed, stroking her son's hair gently as he drifted off to sleep. Her thoughts drifted to her husband in the next room, and she smiled.

It had been a tiring day, but when she had arrived home, Harry at the door with James on his hip and Albus clinging onto his trouser legs, she had felt such a rush of love for all of them that tiredness had become completely secondary.

She kissed James softly on the forehead, and his eyelids flickered, dreamlike, before he settled back into sleep. Looking back into the room one last time, a smile on her face, Ginny closed the door to her son's room softly and then padded quietly down to her bedroom.

When she opened the door, the soft light of the bedside lamp spilled out into the hallway, and she grinned at the sight of Harry, his whole body curled awkwardly around Albus, their identical black hair mussed together in a tangle of ebony that made it impossible to tell where one head ended and the other began.

Leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed loosely, Ginny gazed at her husband and youngest son, feeling immense love for them both.

She crawled in behind Harry, fitting her body to his as she did every night, and he opened his eyes sleepily, looking back at her with a small smile.

"He didn't want to sleep alone," Harry said, explaining the new addition to their bed.

Ginny smiled again, snuggling into his warm body, wondering, once again, how she could be so lucky. Albus made a small, sad sound in his sleep, and Harry pulled him closer. The room seemed to darken imperceptibly, a sleepy darkness which enveloped the entire room so that its inhabitants closed their eyes, dozing in the gloom.

Ginny kissed Harry's rough cheek, and felt the small rise of it as he smiled. Then there was a small noise, like that of a tiny animal, and the door to their bedroom was opening. A padding sound crossed the floorboards, and Ginny put her hand down in the dark, pulling James up onto the bed and beside her.

Then they were silent in the darkness, and as Ginny drifted off to sleep, she thought _no one could love you all as much as I love you_. _No one_.

_**How to look into your eyes...**_

_**To let go of your hand...**_

_**To start another life...**_

_**I just don't understand.**_

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AN: Oh, and hey, guys. I just thought I'd throw this out there, a bit of a new thing...you wouldn't like to review, would you? Yeah? I know, its a totally new invention, reviewing - I'd hardly heard of it myself! But hey, new things are great to try, eh? Give it a go, you might enjoy yourself!

Right, now this following bit is just for anyone who is a tad confused. I'm just pretty much explaining each moment, so if you don't want to read that kind of background info, don't read this! Anyway, you all DO love reading this stuff, so go on! Have a look! It took me ages to figure it all out, so you better! Or, you know. Not. Whatever floats your boat. And (drum roll please), the little doohickmawhatsits (that's right, my new name for the colon. So much cooler. And, you know. Less medical sounding.):

Each 'moment' occurs at different times – they are not taking place simultaneously, or even chronologically.

In the first 'moment' Draco is twenty five. When he says that his wife and son are both gone, he is referring to the fact that they are unknowns to him, not that they are literally gone from his life. The 'relationship' between he and Harry occurred when they were both nineteen, and was very short. Neither man has seen each other since, and Harry is unaware of the feelings Draco has for him. He feels nothing for Draco, as the 'relationship' was nothing more than experimentation for him.

The second 'moment' transpires three years after the epilogue, which makes Harry thirty-nine. Although he loves Ginny, he feels that he doesn't love her as much as she deserves. As it is, he has never been brave enough to leave her before this moment, as he was so worried about hurting her. However, the idea of her being with somebody who doesn't love her as she deserves is a sore spot with him, and eventually he decides to do what he believes is right.

The third 'moment' occurs a year after the epilogue, making Hermione thirty-six. Although I have not specified how Ron dies, I felt that an accident of some sort was most appropriate. However, it is left open for the reader to make up their own mind.

The fourth 'moment' occurs when Ginny is twenty-four, making Harry twenty-five, Albus three, and James (if we go by the fact that he was twelve at the time of the epilogue) four (I think that's right. I'm hopeless at maths.) I just thought it would be nice to add this on, as a little bit of a lighter side to the story. I also thought it would be interesting to see if anyone caught that it occurred in the same year as Draco's 'moment', but it ended up being such an inconsequential thing that I hardly thought anyone would even care, so I thought I would just mention it to show how brilliant I am!


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